LS: The Beginning (38 page)

I felt so touched. It was like she hit every sensitive bone in
my body, causing tears to drip down my cheeks. There was no gift that could top the one my
sister had given me. Although they were just words, they meant a lot more to me.

“Aw thanks, dear,” I said. “How's school been?” Unlike me, she wasn’t home schooled.

“I like my school. Everyone has been so nice to me. I passed my exams, and Mommy said she’s taking me to Disneyland.”

“Oh that’s wonderful. I’m so jealous right now.”

She laughed.

I removed the phone from my ear and looked at Lisa. It was very difficult to speak with her because it pained me to realize
we were worlds apart. I'd always wanted a younger sister and now
my prayers had been answered, but not at the right time.

Lisa had joined me on the bed to listen to the conversation. I placed the phone on my ear. “Please, take good care of yourself, and read your books. You can
give Mummy back the phone,” I sadly said.

“Okay, I will. Bye-bye. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I answered, but she was already gone.

“Isn’t she a darling?” Rose asked.

I took a deep breath to recover from that emotional
moment. “She’s an angel, mom. Please, just as you did for me, take perfect
care of her”

“I will son. I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to leave you now. We have an appointment with the
optician.” Rose had informed me that my sister was short
-
sighted and needed to wear a pair of glasses to improve her eyesight.

“Okay, mom, take care,” I said, and hung up the phone.

Lisa returned, placing her head on my chest, releasing that sensational
feeling. I closed my eyes as the current flowed through my veins. “About what we discussed the other day: are you still interested in investing your money into something productive?”

I nodded. “Probably,” I said.

“What about a fashion company?”

“Sounds interesting, I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, just think about it,” she responded. “Do you think we should leave the house? I'm afraid my dad might surprise us. On Calvin's sixteenth birthday, my dad invited one of Calvin's favorite musicians to the house.” She turned to stare at me. “He knows about our abilities and may find a way to surprise us.”

“Nah, I don’t think it would be a good idea. Let’s
play along and see how it goes.”

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. This didn’t alert us because we already knew
someone was approaching, but what we didn't know was who would be the first to give his or her
birthday wishes? It was Calvin. He entered the room holding two gift boxes in his
hands; one was considerably big, while the other box was smaller.

“Happy birthday, you two,” he said, handing the boxes over to Lisa,
who then got up and moved closer to him.
Her expression was bemused. It seemed like he was the least person she'd expected to give her a present.

“Thank you so much,” Lisa said, giving him a warm hug.

I stood up and gave him a cold handshake, which by now he was already used to. “Thanks. It means
a lot,” I said.

“You’re both welcome. So the red is yours and the blue is his,” he
said, pointing to me at the mention of
his
. He wrapped the boxes with
our favorite colors: one with red and yellow ribbons, the next with blue and
white spots, but no ribbon. Lisa handed mine over to me, and we both stared at them, wondering what
they
could be. Calvin was clever enough to divide his attention; therefore we couldn't read his mind.

“Go on, open them,” he said.

Lisa glanced at me and opened her gift. I followed her; there was no reason to hold the suspense any longer. Lisa was the first to respond to her gift. Inside the red and yellow box
was a
jigsaw puzzle, the little pieces were meant to form a picture of her and Calvin when they were much younger.
She was so happy; her face couldn’t hold her grin.

“This is awesome,” she said, and then gave
him a second, but longer hug. Lisa was a huge fan of puzzles: she loved
word puzzles, jigsaw puzzles; any puzzle you could think of, she loved it.

Her excitement had made me suspend my unwrapping, so I
continued opening my gift. Mine was a Blackberry phone. I gazed at the phone in surprise. It was the latest phone on the market, and definitely was very expensive, but I couldn’t
question how he got the money because I knew how wealthy his parents were.

“Really nice, thanks,” I said, as Lisa stared at Calvin with admiration. If only Stacey could love her exactly the same way as Calvin
liked me, the world would have been a better place to live in.

“I figured you’ll need a second phone,” he said.

Indeed, he was right. I
did need a second phone to communicate with Lisa and family, but I'
d been
too lazy to buy one. Calvin left the room after his last speech, hurrying to make a phone
call to his girlfriend, Kelly Stewart. Without wasting any time, Lisa had begun playing with the giant
puzzle on the bed. Her eyes stared at the scattered pieces with deep sincerity. I sat close to her and watched her attempt to solve the puzzle.

After a while, my phone rang and so did Lisa’s. It was strange, but
after her brother’s gifts we were prepared for the worst. Sharon was the
caller on my phone, and Catherine on Lisa's phone; they had both decided to call at the same time. The two friends called to give Lisa and I their birthday wishes, and after doing so, we
switched phones in order to speak to them both. We told them to get dressed, and that we’d all go out. At least that
would keep us away from any surprise party. Although this was Lisa's idea, not mine.

For the third time, my phone rang. Lisa looked at me in surprise. I shook my head, giving a similar response. I guessed it was Susan and her family, but I was
wrong. The words 'Private Number' were displayed on the phone's screen. I never picked up such numbers, but it was
my birthday so I decided to make an exception.

“Hello,” a lady said.

“Hi.”

“Is this Stephen Wilson?” she asked.

“Yes. How may I help you?” I looked at Lisa. W
ho could this be?
I thought

“Please, come quickly. Your house is on fire,” she announced.

Unfortunately, I
couldn’t read her mind to see if she was telling the truth.

“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing that there was no one living in my house.

“Yes, I am. Do you live at 24 Cinxton Road?" she asked.

"Yeah, I do."

"Then I'm sure it's your house. Come immediately.” She hung up the phone.

I wasn’t able to ask her to describe the location of the building, but then
ignoring her call would be foolish of me. It sounded like a prank call, but I needed to be sure.

“Hey, we’ll have to go to my house and see what’s going on,” I
informed Lisa.

“Sure, definitely,” she replied. Her mouth still open since hearing my house was on fire.

On our way to the gate, we saw Ben and Ellen sitting in the living
room closest to the front door; apparently they were having a discussion. So
Lisa and I
snuck out, hoping not to be caught midway. Running supersonically
would have been a better idea, but we stuck to tiptoeing.

We raced to my house the moment we stepped out of Lisa's gate. As expected, it was a false alarm. There was no sign of smoke; the atmosphere was peaceful. I was silly to believe the lady that called. If my house was indeed on fire, someone would have alerted the police or something.

Definitely someone was trying to prank
me on my birthday, but who? Just to be sure, we entered the grounds to see if anything strange had happened. Lisa and I could sense the presence of people in the estate, but we didn’t know
why they were. It seemed the people knew about our powers, because
they were all thinking irrelevant subjects like playing hockey, having a shower, etc. – or perhaps it was just a coincidence.

It would have been a different ball game if we’d entered running: the
occupants would have been the ones surprised, because only a few people knew about our supernatural abilities. We scanned the grounds to check for fire, but instead we found two
huge objects covered with a cloth just like the day I’d arrived. The surprise
ceased and the suspense begun. We were certain they were both cars,
but the question was: for whom?

Susan, Stacey, Julie and Tony – the man who picked me from the airport – still
dressed in his black suit – all came out from the house. They hugged Lisa and I, wishing us a happy birthday.

“Honey, these are your birthday gifts from your mom and dad,” Susan
said, pointing to the cars covered with the cloth. I was a bit confused. I didn’t know what
‘
your
birthday
gifts’
meant: was it the plural
or singular
‘
your
’?

Tony went in between the two cars and removed the cloths
simultaneously. Under the cloths were two different cars. One was a blue Range Rover; the other was a yellow Nissan
.
At the sight of the colors, I understood what Susan meant by
‘
your’. Lisa and I were both dumbfounded. The gifts were so unexpected, especially when
my mum and dad had said they didn’t get any birthday presents for us.
O
bviously they were lying about almost everything. I was still baffled on
how they knew about Lisa’s favorite color, but, more importantly, how they
knew it was also her birthday.

Stacey moved closer to me.

“I hope you don't mind, I told them about Lisa,” she said. That was the
nicest thing she’d done in a while. Maybe she was trying to make amends.

Susan was in a hurry to go for a meeting so she embraced Lisa and I once more,
and left. Julie stayed back with Stacey and kept her distance, but still stared at me with passion.

Lisa and I scrutinized our respective cars. “Do you like it?” I asked

She smiled. “I love it. It’s so beautiful. Look at the lamps.”

“Yeah, I love mine as well.  You know, that was a really good one. Lying to us about the gifts and then staging a prank call.”